I've seen this trope around for a while now, that is, people who insist that it's somehow incorrect to say, "I don't believe in global warming" or "I don't believe in evolution." I used to find this bizarre, as it seems straightforward for a climate denier or creationist to say such things.
I think what people who get rankled by this have in mind is a certain, pluralistic connotation of "believe." Often when someone says, "I believe in Christianity," it's implied that atheists or people of other faiths are not unreasonable to believe differently. (Something similar could be said about political or ethical beliefs. It's difficult to spell out the sense in which you can view someone who disagrees with you as reasonable, but I think you know what I mean.) So people who think "belief" is not applicable to global warming or evolution are trying to deny that we should be pluralistic about these matters.
I still think this is a somewhat obtuse equivocation on the word "belief," but I think I understand the intuition beneath it.